Saturday, July 31, 2010

The blue cars were supposed to run today, and I was ready to be a trainman. But it was dark and cloudy, and drizzled on and off during the day, so Jim West and Bob Opal decided to run 4000's instead. The weather should be much better for the Transport Extravaganza tomorrow.

Two long-time friends of ours from the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum were visiting: Bill Fronczek and Bruce Wells. Norm and I talked to them for a while about various subjects., and we looked at some of the cars from Trolleyville. They've been here several times before over the years, of course.

I spent some time working on replacing a couple of parts in the 319's air system, and looked at the 321 again.

Many of the Car Department regulars went to East Chicago today to help get several South Shore cars ready for movement. They had been stored at a steel mill there, and are being transferred to East Troy. This may be the last time interurban cars travel on their own wheels over a regular railroad, so I'm hoping somebody will send us some pictures!

Here are the window frames from Elgin & Belvidere car 208, that Bob mentioned below. These are removable storm sash for winter use, since there's no way to raise the window.

Finally, Henry Vincent brought out the open car, Veracruz #19, for some training trips, and then revenue service. I got qualified on the car along with several others, and it should be running again tomorrow.

I had to leave early to go to a cocktail party, but I plan to be running the 308 and 309 all day tomorrow, along with hundreds of antique automobiles and other vehicles on display. You won't want to miss it!

I would expect similar treatment to the cars as the current cars have seen, ie changes to accomodate the lower voltage, pantographs removed and poles installed, different paint scheme, and basically "adaptive re-use"

East Troy considers itself an electric tourist line, not a museum operation.

John C, they did indeed scrap two of their three 5-50s. Last November about fifteen of us went up there and stripped the 28 and 35 down to the frame...when we got done they looked like a plague of locusts had gotten to them. The bodies went to scrap in Milwaukee about a month later.

As far as I know, a decision still hasn't been made about how the Veracruz car will be painted. It was heavily rebuilt by Trolleyville so it's not really original, though it somewhat resembles its as-built appearance.

The sashes were stored in a local barn. They're certainly from an interurban car, and E&B 208 is as likely a candidate as any. We have one single, twelve complete doubles and parts of another, so that matches the 208's side windows exactly.

The 208 was the one which had the "phone booth" cab installed at Wheaton. I've always thought this must be a practical joke by the CA&E shop forces, they would never do anything like this to their own cars!

I've heard a couple of different stories about the "phone booth" extensions on the ends of the 208. One was that it was rebuilt following a bad wreck, the other is that it was done in the final years of one-man service, to move the motorman out of the passenger flow on the platforms. Either way, apparently it was just an experiment, since none of the E&B's other cars were modified that way.

Regardless, I think it looked awful. Cars 207-209 were very attractive cars as built, and I remember seeing a pic of it for the first time and thinking "How could somebody DO that to a poor innocent interurban car????"

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About This Site

The "Hicks Locomotive and Car Works" banner at the top is taken from original artwork of the company, which was in business from 1897 to 1911. The picture behind it shows the four restored CA&E wood cars at the Museum, starting with #309, which was built by the Hicks Locomotive and Car Works in 1907.

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